Kevin Lynch: The Image of the City (1960)

Lynch's seminal book on the perceptual reading of the city reviewed by Gaia Zamburlini


“The image of the city” was written by American urban planner Kevin Andrew Lynch (1918 – 1984). After studying in various places, including Taliesin Studio under Frank Lloyd Wright, he received a Bachelor degree in city planning from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) where, later on, he became full professor in 1963.

His main contribution was to provide empirical research on city planning, studying how individuals perceive and navigate the urban landscape. This book, published in 1960, also explores the presence of time and history in the urban environment, and therefore how these external factors affect people. The first, straightforward approach to the city, taken by every individual, is looking at it, which constitutes a 5-sense aesthetical experience through space and time. A urban system can therefore be either perceived as stable or in constant change, which is the most noticeable effect of external factors affecting any environment.

On this concern, Lynch states that, unlike Architecture, Urbanism is in constant change: today, fifty years later, this issue could be regarded and discussed with further attention, as architecture, too, is subject to external factors and different perceptions, scale, but mostly a cultural aspect, involving the fact that In the 1960s the life-cycle of a building was still not wholly taken into account, as it came up about twenty years later with sustainability issues.

Lynch focuses on four main concepts, correlated to a wise urban planning:

a urban system has to be held legible, through definite sensory cues
its image has to be perceived by the observer, arbitrarily selected by the community and finally manipulated by city planners.
legibility and imageability would then lead to the identification of a structure, and therefore a precise identity, which are both parameters through which it is possible to analyse an urban system and its own elements.
Lynch reckons that there might be different relations of complexity within every structure: these consist in the relations between definite elements, which are identified in:
path_landmark_edge_node_district.

Lynch’s aim is to understand the relation between environmental images and urban life, at the basis of urban design principles; he therefore brings up an analysis of three different towns, putting into practice a research method whose successfulness is assessed and tested through the results of the analysis itself.

The research focused on Boston, Jersey City and L.os Angeles. As explained, the method undertaken concentrated on two phases, consisting firstly in office-based interviews, where the sample citizens were also required to draw up a map in order to make a rapid description of the city. The second phase consisted in a systematic examination of the environmental image evoked by trained observers in the field.



This is how, through surveys and research, Boston appears to be perceived only as one-sided, Jersey City is described as a formless place “on the edge of something else” and Los Angeles, despite being well structured, seems as faceless as Jersey City, delivering a sense of bewilderment.

On the basis of this in-depth analysis, Lynch summarises the common themes that have arisen, among which we should remember : a common interest for panoramas, and smaller landscape features, noted with care and attention; shapeless places which, although not pleasant, seem to be remarkable and striking, as Dewey Square excavations in Boston around the ‘60s economic boom; identification of places with the social-classes that occupy or use them; the presence or lack of historical marks.
It is interesting to realise how the whole interview and in-field approach has been the one aimed at discovering the social experience of a town, which does not just outline how a urban system works but also how it is perceived by people. This approach reveals a particular compatibility with the rising experimental psychology of the ‘60s, aimed at constituting methods and theories according to the action and reaction of people.


From the field-research, what evidently arises is that each individual image constitutes a connection between urban forms and what is, on a more global extent, the public image. Each of those images is constructed and relying on the 5 elements already mentioned, which are:

-paths: the channel of the observer

-edges: breaking in continuity with the surrounding areas

-districts: 2-dimensional elements within which we spot a common character

-nodes: strategic points

-landmarks: external references

As we previously said, it is possible to draw out thousands of interrelations between the elements, which Kevin Lynch thoroughly describes in Chapter 3 and 4.

On one side, we could therefore say that his method follows a coherent bottom-up route, starting from the individual elements to reach gradually the whole; This strategy would be set to aim at continuity, regularity, measurability and kinesthetic quality, which is the first to provide identity over a continuous experience through time. Nevertheless, although the bottom-up method has a point, as far as order and clarity is concerned, it sticks to the mid-century tendency to cathegorisation, which today might turn out to be too constraining when facing different and multiple realities.

In conclusion, we could say that in the image development process, visual education is the basis for reshaping what surrounds us, and viceversa. This is in fact the main condition for which a critical audience can be formed and therefore for which a urban system can be analysed, manipulated and developed. Despite what previously was said about Kevin Lynch’s ‘schematism’, we reckon his contribution has been of relevant importance: first of all, he has fully put into practice what had just lingered among architects and planners for years: an attention and complete recognition of the citizen’s role, that not only lives a town –stating his own needs-, but also perceives it –providing useful images for planners to work on. Secondly, the importance of visual communication in the urban space, which brings together individuals, experience and planners in order for them to communicate on a common thread.

Architecture + Urbanism recommends: Rowe X Ungers

Rowe x Ungers: Untold Collaborations on the City during the 1960-70s at Cornell



PRESTON H. THOMAS MEMORIAL SYMPOSIUM EXHIBITION 2010

Extensive architectural research and assessment have separately addressed the work of Colin Rowe and Oswald Mathias Ungers. Now, as the profession is in a constant search for tentative alternatives, a comparative understanding of Rowe and Ungers’ impassionate pedagogical discourse within the turmoil of their time permits us to refocus on important issues of architecture and the city relative to the pedagogical goals being pursued at Cornell.

Latent collaboration and competition marked the period when Rowe and Ungers both taught at Cornell. Due to bureaucratic situations and institutional grievances, the relationship has not been recorded as being mutually profitable. But the state of confusion in which architecture existed in this tumultuous period — not dissimilar to the discipline’s current cacophony — allowed for a common aspiration and rigor in promoting a theory of architecture that envisioned new methodologies and modes of thought. Despite the infamous stories of conflict, it is more important to note their mutual understandings of critical conditions for architecture, and the urgency to establish new grounds for projective productions.

A comparative understanding of their work is significant for us today for several reasons. Theoretical armatures were constructed through the disciplinary languages of architecture as a means for exploring a mode of operation resistant, yet critical of the political, social, economic, cultural turmoil of the period. To project beyond the “post” Modernism infused aura of reclusive banality of the picturesque and sci-fi utopianism, they sought the possibility of a disciplinary autonomy that would actively engage, not ignore, society in the conceptualization of architectural languages through the city. As important to both was the methodology they employed to analyze, develop, and test their thesis of architecture and city. Their work was based on extensive research and analysis, processed through iterative adjustments of pedagogical frameworks. Studio and thesis projects became laboratories of larger methodological experiments and publications and exhibitions were utilized as tools of analytical production. As critically, architecture and the city were understood as flexible systems in constant flux. They both shared the urgency for an alternative path between the ideological resistance of the existing city and the authoritarian trauma of modern planning. Urban strategies were deployed as malleable mechanisms in which object and field are in continuous dialogue and network systems accommodating the inevitable changes and transformations of urban conditions. It is through the process of theory, research, analysis and speculations that the Collage City of Rowe and Cities within the City of Ungers became projective manifestos to test and investigate the new directions in architecture and city that were critical of the disciplinary anxiety of the times and proposed an urban vision for the new collective. This is what remains pertinent to us now.

If the decades of the 60s and 70s are recognized as a period when modernist ideals were questioned and the profession was infused with doubt and self-questioning, we find ourselves in a similar situation today, as the practice struggles to identify its position within the multiplicity of aphasic spectacles and discord of heterogeneous complacencies. In this sense the critical modus operandi of Rowe and Ungers can be regarded as a tool for re-engaging and critiquing the discipline in its current state. To know what is to be, we need to know what was before.

The exhibition is being curated by Yehre Suh.

OPENING RECEPTION
Friday, August 27, 2010
6 p.m.
DATES
August 25, 2010 – September 3, 2010

LOCATION
John Hartell Gallery, Sibley Dome, Cornell University

The Third Act

Ed Cutler has been filling in a gap

Possible Preston

Natasha Gershfield has been exploring the potential urban form of Preston

Information for New MA Architecture + Urbanism Students

Welcome to the MA Architecture + Urbanism at the Manchester School of Architecture. Registration may be completed online from 23 August 2010 here

Information regarding registration at the University of Manchester will be available from the beginning of September 2010.

Students new to Manchester will find much useful information in The Manchester Student Society of Architecture Guide

There will be an introductory meeting on Tuesday 28 September 2010 at 11.00 am in Chatham 712

What should the students bring?

A powerpoint presentation of 5 slides explaining their experience and ambitions for the course. Students should also have read some of the books listed in the bibliography on the right hand of this blog

It is anticipated that there will be a course field trip to Rome in the week commencing 1 November 2010. If in the meantime you have any other queries before your arrival please do not hesitate to contact me.



The film shows the funeral of Enrico Berlinguer in Piazza San Giovanni, Rome in 1984

Peter Katz: The New Urbanism - Toward an Architecture of Community

A review of the 1994 book by Marwa Al- Nahlawi


This book comprises a widely illustrated collection of articles and essays put forward by the leading figures of the New Urbanism movement that emerged in the United States in the late 1970s. Split into two parts, “The New Urbanism” demonstrates how the principles of this movement can be applied to both infill and new development sites at a variety of ranges and scales in the city. The author claims that it “couldn’t have come at a better time” following the unsustainable suburban sprawl that had risen in the mid 20th Century after the Second World War. The advent of the automobile, along with the deterioration of city centres, encouraged more people to leave and disperse to the suburbs for privacy, mobility, security and home ownership. Despite there being many advantages to this move, it resulted in the fragmentation of society of which the consequences went by unnoticed for a long time.

The New Urbanism movement came forward as a response to this, in order to try and reintegrate the components of modern urban and suburban life into compact pedestrian-friendly communities efficiently linked with the larger regional infrastructure. According to Peter Calthorpe, one of the founding members of the Congress for New Urbanism, there are two ways in which the principles of the New Urbanism are to be employed in a region. First, they should be applied in cities as well as suburbs and new growth areas. Second, the entire region should be treated as a whole (socially, economically and ecologically), using the same design principles throughout. With regards to a growing region, Calthorpe rejects any attempt to limit overall growth or allow it to expand uncontrollably, claiming that both actions would result in either further sprawl or undesirable traffic and congestion. Alternatively, he states that growth should be accommodated first in redevelopment and infill locations and then in new growth areas that are within transit proximity to the city centre. Peter Calthorpe’s work is based mainly on TOD (Transit-oriented development), which is “an attempt to regroup the suburb into a density which makes public transit feasible”.

Andres Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, both also co-founders of the Congress for New Urbanism, established the principles of TND (Traditional Neighbourhood Development) with the fundamental organizing elements being the neighbourhood, the district and the corridor. The neighbourhood is defined as an urbanized area with a balanced mix of human activity; it has a centre and an edge and is based on a network of interconnecting streets where people live, work, play, shop, to go to school, etc. In a neighbourhood, the public realm rules over the private. A district has a similar structure to that of a neighbourhood and also relies on its relationship to transit but is usually an area of a single primary function around which other supporting activities may take place. Finally, the corridor, acts as a connector and separator of neighbourhoods and districts, and it is characterized by its visual continuity. Its technological intensity and close-by densities determine the location and type of a corridor.

In their essay, Elizabeth Moule and Stefanos Polyzoides – also members of the Congress for New Urbanism -take Architecture and Urbanism back to its most elemental scale in which a plan is first laid out followed by the regulation of public and private realms and finally, the introduction of buildings and open spaces that ultimately define the character of a city. Their application of the New Urbanism principles is to ensure the existence of a public realm through individual buildings by taking the street, the building and the block as mutually dependent entities. Rather than dividing lines, the streets in a city are seen as communal spaces and passages within an interconnected network. Along with the basic design principles of streets, there should exist a hierarchy in their types, according to their required vehicular and pedestrian load. Blocks illustrate the urban fabric of a city and define the public realm, revealing the relationship between the pedestrian, the vehicle and the building. Ultimately, they should be designed and configured around the pedestrian before anything else. The building is considered to be “the smallest increment of growth” in the city. Moule and Polyzaides argue that, in building design, functionalism and flexibility alone result in exclusive zoning and fragmentation; therefore, design should include type as well as function to allow for more sustainable and adaptable architecture.

In the afterword, Vincent Scully, suggests that although the principles of the New Urbanism claim to be applicable to the city centre as well as the suburbs – and a couple of examples were illustrated in the book – it deals mainly with suburban settings and therefore “The new Suburbanism” may have been more fitting for a title. However, he also mentions that in any case, the book is more about bringing back the sense of community into architecture, a characteristic that had been gradually declining over the course of the century. This disintegration he confirms is owed mostly to the automobile above all else.

“The New Urbanism”, like many other publications, is not a flawless response to the sprawl and fragmentation that emerged in the United States, and nor is it a complete solution with no holes to be filled. However, it provides a utopian concept that, if applied thoroughly and conscientiously, can provide a holistic model for town and city planning, with minimal trade-offs. This concept seeks to revive the public realm, which has been increasingly dominated by the private, and revitalise the city that has deteriorated over time. The principles mentioned in the book instruct us to favour the pedestrian over the automobile, and design accordingly. They aim to regenerate the once existing community-based towns that have been replaced by modernism’s international style of architecture that is free from the restraints of the city, from the community, from the urban situation as a whole. Saying that, I also believe that upon embracing these principles, it is very easy to steer away from the primary intention of creating mixed use, diverse, pedestrianised communities and instead, create socially exclusive, sheltered developments that are far from being “public” per se.

Peter G. Rowe: Civic Realism

A review by Pardip Bansal of the 1999 book published by M.I.T. Press


Rowe is a professor of Architecture and Urban Design at Harvard University, where he has taught since 1985. Since then he has also been the Dean, the Chairman, Vice Chairman, Director, and Vice President of various programmes, departments and faculties of various other institutions. In addition he is an honorary professor at many universities across the world. Rowe has written many books generally focused on the evolving cultural considerations of modernity, especially as they apply in various regions and aspects of the built environment.

In Civic Realism Rowe looks at the shape and appearance of civic places, and at the mixture of social, political and cultural circumstances of societies that bring them into existence. This book is as much about the making and reshaping of civic places as it is about urban architecture. The book is organised into five main parts, which are the main themes of civic realism (according to Rowe), the five being…
Reexamining the Public Realm,
Civic Realms and Public Spaces,
Realism and World Making,
Individual Spaces and Collective Places,
and Representation and Constitution of Spatial Meanings.
These themes are discussed using examples or case studies to detail each point. The final part The Practice of Civic Realism aims to pull all the themes together.

Rowe begins by re-examining the public realm and explores Siena and its Piazza del Campo from the 13th and 14th Century and states “Siena and its Piazza del Campo stand out as a place where civic life, civic aspirations, and civic responsibilities have been inscribed indelibly...” This is because everyday and special activities have taken place there,
helped by its changing governments over time to make the space work, even to the present day.

In the Civic Realism and Public Spaces section Rowe opens up the idea of power sharing interests between government and various elements of civic society by introducing the modern and restricted interpretation of civil society, normally referring to social organisations being apart from the state. However at the best of times interests can converge in examples where normally between the state and civil society they would diverge, which allows the creation of something with civic impact. The first example is the urban public spaces of Barcelona, completed between 1981 and 1987 to represent a large and impressive body of public bodies at widely different scales, spread throughout the city of some 1.7 million people. These were highly specific and much needed open space projects, both to establish a strong public presence and to help renovate the city. Emphasis was placed on multiple uses of public spaces, in part to accommodate the daily rituals of meeting, strolling, and simply being together in a public place all strong characteristics of Barcelona’s life. A second example the Parisian Grands Projets of François Mitterrand, like the urban spaces of Barcelona…” also represents the synergy between the state and society at large". In this case Rowe claims here that these state developed and managed projects have to be able to provide multiple meanings to a mixture of user groups to be enjoyed by everyone and ultimately to be prosperous.

Next in the third chapter Realism and World Making Rowe, in the context of figurative arts, defines the term realism where context and subject matter are the sign of truth. He presents this theme throughout the analysis of the urban design solution of the Rockerfeller Centre in New York. Rowe continues to attempt to define architectural realism and also defines realist places where civil society and state can conduct their business on an everyday basis co‐operatively. In the fourth chapter Individual Spaces and Collective Places Rowe debates the social and cultural reworking of Soho and Central Park in New York, where he finds individual means, practices, culture, and background bestow to the locale the characteristic formation of local identity.

Moving on to the final theme Representation and Constitution of Spatial Meanings, here Rowe delves into the political and historic events in the former Yugoslavia and brings in the work of Joze Pecnik, who transformed the city showing urban architecture to be part of a broad civic project on behalf of society. His public infrastructure improvements set a civic tone for public life helping to establish and celebrate the course of Slovenian cultural autonomy. Plecnik achieved this by harmonising the old and new morphological landscape and architectural elements together.

Finally we come to The Practice of Civic Realism. Rowe pulls the various themes of Civic Realism together and summarises the thesis that the civic realm lies between the public and private aspects of our lives although it tends to be produced by both. Derived from mainly informal networks of associations of society, favorable social and political conditions are required for good civic space to come about. Also the term civic represents a point of view about public conduct. Something civic is educational and worthy of being seen and heard in public, and furthermore something to be passed on to further generations with pride. Urbanistically architecturally speaking, civic realism represented within this book is not a style or specific aesthetic ideology. It is at first a descriptive state or condition of being in the world, and secondly an orientation or principles to be taken and implemented when making urban architecture into something that is civic, and is distinct from simply being public or personal experience. Civic realist places contain a pluralism of attitudes with a sense of common accord: they are adaptive, and support everyday life, and allow for group or individual expression.

Overall this book is researched in depth and goes far beyond the surface of the themes discussed. it generally lacked illustrations to back up some of its concepts. I also felt that sometimes this book would be enjoyed more so by social historians than by urban designers and architects, not to say they would not enjoy it especially if they were interested in
the usage and working of public and civic places.